If Mark kept Hydraulic Man
by Romantic Twist
Summary: An alternative ending to the Land of the Giants episode "The Mechanical Man" leads to a series of new adventures for the Spindrift passengers and crew, with some familiar characters from the series.


The original story so far:

Mark Wilson and Alexander Fitzhugh witnessed a giant robot known as the Hydraulic Man rampaging in the city. They were seen and caught by Professor Gorn and taken to his laboratory, where Mark worked with Gorn and his assistant Zoral to perfect the Hydraulic Man in exchange for help in returning to earth.

Gorn broke his word. Steve and Valerie and Dan freed Mark, who built a remote control override for the Hydraulic Man and sent it on a self-destructive attack on Gorn and Zoral.  
Zoral escaped. Gorn and the Hydraulic Man were destroyed.

But what if Mark had managed to escape with the Hydraulic Man. Pick up the action near the end of the original episode.

"Where are you sending him, Mark?" asked one of his friends.

"To his destruction, I hope," said Mark.

"You don't want to do that," said Fitzhugh, "We now have a bullet synthetic giant we can ride inside and control. Think of the possibilities."

"Fitz might have a point," said Steve, "It's not as risky as some of the other ideas you've tried, and it would give us an enormous edge."

"He could even guard the ship," said Valerie.

"Sure. The SID would be powerless, even if they ever found our base camp," said Dan.

"Alright, I'll see what I can do," said Mark, "Their damaged control panel was interfering with the signal from my remote a few seconds ago, but I seem to be regaining control.

The Hydraulic Man had already killed Gorn, while Mark had not been in control. Zoral ran for his life, fleeing the complex. The Council secretary had already written the demonstration off as a dangerous mistake, and fled the laboratory too.

Mark ran closer to the Hydraulic Man, to improve the signal strength from his remote device.

He was successful. He got the robot to stop its uncontrolled movements and kneel down and put them in its coat pockets. Leaving the chest panel open would be suspicious. Mark kept his head in view, so that he could see where to direct the Hydraulic Man, and had it leave the laboratory and walk back to their base camp.

From then on, the Mechanical Man was their remote controlled protection. Mark modified the Spindrift's instrument panel to include the ability for Steve and Dan to control the Hydraulic Man from the instrument panel.

The earthlings had several more adventures in the giant world. They eventually found themselves hunted by the giant entomologist who had once captured Steve and Valerie. That had occurred just after they had first landed on the giant world and made a forced second landing in the forest after a struggle to break the grip of a giant boy had drained the ship's power.

The Spindrift had been further damaged, when a giant cat had attacked it. They had been trying in vain to repair it ever since. The giant entomologist saw Dan returning from the outpost one day, and tiptoed silently after Dan. Having learned from the resourcefulness of the little people the first time around, he was keen to have the advantage of surprise.

Fitzhugh was guarding the base camp, using the remote control, when he saw Dan approaching. He also saw what Dan had missed: the silent giant shadowing the co-pilot.

"Dan, look out!" yelled Fitzhugh, and activated the controls. As the giant entomologist noticed the ship, he stepped towards it.

The Hydraulic Man approached the giant, at Fitzhugh's electronic command, and attacked him. The giant fought back, but found himself struggling against the metal arms of the Hydraulic Man.

"He knows our base camp. He'll never let us live in peace," said Fitzhugh, and had the Hydraulic Man choke the giant to death, before Dan could even react.

The giant fell to the ground.

"There might have been another way," said Dan.

"Have you forgotten our last encounter with that mad giant?" said Fitzhugh, who was the one with the most flexible code of morality of the seven earthlings.

"So what do we do with him now? We can't leave a dead giant body in the forest just near our base camp."

Steve, Mark, Betty and Valerie were off collecting materials for the spaceship, by sneaking into the late Gorn's laboratory, when Zoral was away. If they found anything heavy or got into trouble, they would radio Fitzhugh to bring the Hydraulic Man. The Hydraulic Man's first priority of usage was the Spindrift base camp protection.

Barry had awoken in the lean-to, having heard Fitzhugh's warning shout to Dan, and witnessed the death of the giant. Now he had a suggestion for Dan's latest problem.

"What about the quicksand that the Hydraulic Man saved Chipper from, when I first met him," said Barry.

"Brilliant, boy," said Fitzhugh, "I'll have the Hydraulic Man carry the dead giant to the quicksand, and he can sink to a natural grave.

"Try to avoid killing any more of them," said Dan.

"This coming from the one who led him to our camp," said Fitzhugh.

Fitzhugh had fenced more with Dan than any others over the last two years. He cared for Barry, shared rebellious traits with Mark and Valerie, and often annoyed Steve with his underhanded defiance. Dan had a more subtle way of handling the con man, and in this case had to concede that Fitzhugh's comeback was accurate. Dan had brought the giant there: their oldest enemy.

The others returned and learned the startling news from Dan, while Fitzhugh, Barry and the Hydraulic Man were 'burying' the giant.

Fitzhugh was unaware of one vital fact. The giant entomologist's wife Dorina had come out with her husband that morning, searching for the little people as well. They had split up in order that at least one of them might take the little people by surprise. Dorina had not seen what had happened at their base camp, but she did managed to observe the Hydraulic Man carrying her husband's body, with Fitzhugh and Barry riding in its top pocket, with their heads sticking out.

She listened to their conversation.

"Did you really want to kill the giant?" asked Barry.

"I had no choice. Now boy, I hope it doesn't need to happen again, but I'm sure Mark would have done the same thing."

Dorina was enraged. For over a year now, her husband had paid her no romantic attention at all, obsessed with hunting and capturing little people, and unable to find them again since they had fled through his drain and escaped. These little folk had absorbed his scientific curiosity and distracted him from her, at a time when their marriage had already been suffering from lack of romance. Now one of them had killed her husband. How had he done it, and why was another man her own size helping to dispose of the body?

Dorina listened for more information, following them from behind bushes that concealed her presence.

"He might have," said Barry, "But I hope we don't have to use the Hydraulic Man for anything other than self defence and heavy lifting from now on."

"This robot is our ticket home, or the means to indirectly secure it," said Fitzhugh.

So that was it. They had control of a robot. She knew she would be as ineffective as her husband seemed to have been against such a technical advantage. She returned to her home, and decided to put science aside and waste no time grieving a long dead romance in a failing marriage. Instead, she would go out on the town in the giant city, put herself back into circulation and hopefully meet a new man.

A few days later, Barry was manning the outpost, when he saw a familiar girl walking through the woods. It was the girl who had given him the cookie and persuaded her father to protect the little people from capture by bounty hunters. He hadn't seen her for a long time.

She stopped and sat down, and put out more food. Barry knew he could trust her, and decided against Steve's rule of avoiding giants altogether this time. Besides, if her father ever turned against them again, there was always the Hydraulic Man now.

Barry walked out and said, "Hello."

"Hello!" she said, "I was hoping to find you. I've started becoming a young woman, and begun to really miss you."

"I missed you too," said Barry.

"Would you like something to eat. I brought a full picnic lunch."

"Thank you."

The two soon voiced what had been in the backs of their minds when they had first met, but had been overshadowed by the threat of her (at that point unsympathetic) father and the bounty hunters: They were in love with each other.

They began a series of meetings at the outpost, and the other Spindrift members soon learned that Barry was having a relationship with the girl, whose name was Berlia.

In the mean time, Dorina met a charming man in the city one night. Like her he was a scientist, although his specialty was electronics. His name was Professor Kermis and he was working on a teleporter.

They fell quickly in love, and were soon married. He moved into her home, having been living in rental properties for a while.

As a result of this, he never met Mrs Evers and Dr Marad, and thus never caught the attention of the SID. He perfected his teleporter in secrecy, with only his wife aware of it. One day he was scanning the forest with the teleporter's viewer, when the Spindrift base camp came up on the screen, along with six little people and a giant man.

Professor Kermis set the teleporter and brought the little people to the top of his desk.

They looked up in amazement.

"Inidu!" said Mark, "Who else could have zapped us here like this?"

"You are mistaken," said Kermis, "I am Professor Kermis. Inidu the Magician is my twin brother. We were both interested in teleportation, but moved in different lines of research. He studied and mastered illusion and magic tricks. I turned to science. When he was falsely accused of killing a member of the audience with one of his tricks, I put more time into trying to design the teleporter to get him out of prison. Yet he escaped anyway. He has told me how you were instrumental in proving his innocence."

"That was Fitzhugh, using a hidden tape recorder to exact a confession," said Mark.

"He was grateful, and enjoys his freedom. When I saw that man at your space ship, I had to repay my brother's debt by rescuing you."

"Oh him," said Steve, "He's not a man. He's a kind of robot, known as the Hydraulic Man. We control him with a remote device, to protect our camp, while we work on repairing our spaceship to return to earth."

"But you have no need of repairing it," said the Professor, "If you all climbed into your spaceship, I could teleport it to the earth location of your choice. This machine has the scope of the whole universe."

"Are you serious?" asked Dan.

He gave them some further demonstrations, by sending small inanimate objects to earth, which they viewed on the screen.

"I'm convinced," said Mark.

"Where should we pop up on earth?" asked Dan.

"How about London?" said Betty, "It was our original destination."

"Will we have a story to tell," said Valerie.

"I can do it now, if you like," said Kermis.

"He could pluck us back from earth, or anyone for that matter, whenever he liked. It's just as well he's benevolent," thought Steve, who was always suspicious, "He wondered if Mark had observed enough of the machine to design one himself on earth, just in case anyone else ever fell at the mercy of giants in the future.

Steve dismissed that thought. He was a pilot, and teleportation technology on earth would put sub orbital flights out of business. Then, with the risk of more space warps accidents (which lead to the giant world), maybe sub orbital flights were not the safest means of travel anyway.

"We have a seventh team member and a dog," said Betty, "He's with a friend at the moment."

"We'll go and tell him," said Steve, "Can you get us back to camp, professor? We're very grateful for your help. It's ironic that our earth technology is largely 50 years ahead of giant technology. Yet you have invented something not previously conceived by anyone else from either of our worlds."

"I'll send you back. But how will I know when you're ready? The viewer has no sound."

"Take this tiny radio," said Mark, "We don't have many left, but thanks to you we won't be needing them much longer."

Kermis took the radio and sent all six back to the Spindrift base camp.

"You guys go and tell Barry the good news at the outpost," said Mark, "I have one more job for the Hydraulic Man."

"What kind of job?" said Steve.

"It's kind of private," said Mark.

Mark and Steve had seldom seen eye to eye, when any serious fork in the road had been present. Steve was conscious of the fact that Mark had been entirely responsible for the advantages that they had gained from the use of the Hydraulic Man.

"Just tell me you're not planning on killing anyone," said Steve.

"It's a harmless mission," said Mark, and took off, riding in the Hydraulic Man's pocket.

"Meet us back here when you're ready, and use your radio if you need to," called Steve.

Dan, Fitzhugh, Betty, Valerie and Steve set off for the outpost, and came upon Barry, who was snuggling against Berlia's cheek, as he sat on her shoulder.

"Barry, we have marvellous news," said Fitzhugh, "A giant scientist has the means to take us home."

"Fitzhugh!" snarled Steve, annoyed that Fitzhugh was already at risk of sharing Kermis's secrets with another giant.

"We do need to talk," said Dan, "privately. I'm sorry, Berlia."

Berlia put Barry down.

"I'll go for a walk," she said.

"Tell me about it, Captain," said Barry.

"A friendly giant has invented a teleporter with unlimited power. All we need to do is climb into the Spindrift and be instantly sent back to earth, ship and all."

"I'm so happy for all of you," said Barry, "I'll miss you, but I'm glad you found a way back."

"We're going together," said Steve, "It's always been my responsibility to get us all home."

"I don't have a home on earth. I'm an orphan," said Barry, "And things are different now. Berlia and I are in love."

"Look, I understand you've had a cute interlude the last few months, but you're coming back to earth now. I'm responsible for all passengers of Flight 612."

"No Captain. Chipper and I are staying," said Barry.

"Now look here!" yelled Steve.

Betty grabbed his arm.

"Steve, don't get angry with him. Can't you see that he's in love?"

"Which means it calls for a woman's touch," said Valerie, "Come with us, Betty."

Steve deferred to their powers of persuasion for the moment, as Betty, Valerie and Barry took a walk together.

"Barry, do you really understand the implications of staying here?" asked Valerie.

"I do," said Barry.

"Think of all the dangers we've faced. You'll go on facing them all your life."

"Berlia will protect me, and her father's accepted me as a friend," said Barry.

"They can't protect you from the SID if you're found and caught," said Valerie.

"Then you could always introduce us to the inventor of the teleporter," said Barry, "Just in case."

"Barry, you're one of us. Is this really what you want? There'll be other girls on earth, girls your own size," said Betty.

"The only two girls my own size I've liked would both think of me as just a kid," said Barry.

Betty and Valerie were momentarily stunned.

"That's not true," said Betty, "At least not for me."

She put her arms around him and hugged him.

"I liked you most for a long time," said Barry.

"I think you're cute," said Valerie, "But I've been trying to get Mark to notice me, ever since we got to this planet."

"Thank you, both of you, but Berlia and I have fallen in love now, and if I asked her to, she'd stop the Captain from making me go with you."

"It won't come to that, Barry, if you promise to keep in contact with the professor. We gave him a radio," said Valerie, "Steve will come around, once we put that to him."

Betty let go of Barry, and both girls kissed him on the cheek.

The girls walked back to the group, while Barry went to find Berlia.

"He's not going to come," said Betty, "It's serious with Berlia, but he's agreed to keep in radio contact with Professor Kermis, who can use the teleporter both to protect him here and send him to earth if he changes his mind."

"Don't make a fight of it, Steve," said Valerie, "Berlia will take his side."

Steve shrugged.

"Alright. We'd better introduce him to the Professor: just Barry, not Berlia. Kermis may not want a giant teenager knowing his secrets," said Steve.

In the mean time, Mark had ridden the Mechanical Man to a place that he had not visited, since his one and only adventure there: the earth sized house which belonged to Marna Whalan. She was a girl he had tried to protect from the giants, but she had remained strangely loyal to them. Mark had known of her father on earth. Her parents had taken her on a flight, which had gone through the space warp ahead of the Spindrift, and crashed on the giant world. The giants had formed an alliance with Marna.

Mark stopped the Hydraulic Man just outside Marna's house, and had the Hydraulic Man lower him to the ground. He found the door open, and went inside. He searched the house and found nobody. He knew that the giants had a laboratory or house nearby, with a video link to the earth sized house. He had seen them on the screen, when he had met Marna.

He left the house, and began walking through the nearby forest on his own, searching for the giants' premises.

To his surprise, he came across Marna Whalan. She was resting on her side, looking straight at him, and she was now a giantess!

"Marna!"

"Have you come looking for me again, Mark?" she asked.

"Yes. I came to make one last attempt to persuade you to come back to earth with us. It's all possible now. Did you meet Jody and take his formula?"

"I don't know of Jody. I'm not from earth, Mark. I'm not the real Marna Whalan. I am a member of a group called the Underworld Science Collective. Shortly after we first became aware of your presence, the USC began two projects, using a temporary reduction formula we'd invented. Three men from our group, named Joe and Logar and Malak temporarily reduced Joe, so that he could pretend to be an amnesiac earthling fugitive, win your captain's trust, and learn to fly your ship, so that they could all be reduced and infiltrate earth. However, we learned that the reduction effect was too unstable and short term, especially when the explosion that killed them all caused Joe to instantly revert to his full size."

"You're putting me on," said Mark.

"No. I was with the other team of three. I took the same reduction formula, and took on the name of the daughter in a family of three dead earthlings, whose ship we'd found. I called myself Marna Whalan, and pretended to be the other giants' somewhat willing captive, hoping to charm you into leading the others into our clutches. But you outwitted us. I've come here every day, hoping you'd come back."

"Well you can forget it, Marna, or whatever your name is," said Mark.

"I'm Yanella."

Mark turned to run.

The giantess followed him.

As soon as Mark was back in sight of the Hydraulic Man, he activated its controls and warned her not to try to capture him.

"Capture you?" she said, "I gave that ambition up long ago."

"Then what do you want?" he asked.

"Oh Mark," she cooed, "Did you really think that everything that happened between us was an act? I'll never be small enough to take you in my arms again, but I could still love you just as much. The other giants needn't know. The USC has been disbanded, after the SID learned of their activities and imprisoned the other two giant men. Those two managed to keep me out of it. To this day, the SID doesn't know I was a member of the USC. I've been coming back here to look for you, not all your friends. You do love me, don't you, Mark?"

"I could never help that," said Mark, and then raised his voice, "But you used me, Yanella! I ended up fighting Steve, and risking all our freedoms for your benefit. You pretended to be an unwitting damsel in distress from my world. You stole the name of a dead woman and played me like a sap! Have you any idea of the weeks of heartache I went through, after I finally realised you were going to remain loyal to your giant friends? I never fully got over it."

"All the more reason for us to be together, Mark. I never got over you either."

"It's not the same. I always played straight with you. But I can't trust you, Yanella! Besides, you're too big now."

"What about this Jody you mentioned?" asked Yanella.

"You're very acute and perceptive, Yanella. That's one secret you won't be let in on. It was over a long time ago. Don't try to rekindle it, and remember I control the Hydraulic Man."

"If that's how you feel, Mark," she said, "Goodbye then."

He had the Hydraulic Man put him back in its pocket, and left.

Soon he met the others back at the ship. There was one other thing he had not told Yanella. He had gone to see her to resolve something in his mind: the question of whom he loved more: her or Valerie. Now he was sure. Valerie and the others would never know where he'd been, nor why.

"Hi Barry," said Mark, who suddenly felt a far greater ability to empathize with Barry's attachment to Berlia the giant girl.

Had he met Yanella under different circumstances, he might just have chosen the giantess over Valerie. Then again he might have chosen Valerie anyway.

Mark concealed the secret of his recent reunion with Yanella. Barry, having learned of Valerie's feelings for Mark, concealed his old affections for Valerie and his even stronger old affections for Betty.

Mark never told the others what he had been up to, but soon learned of Barry's decision to stay on the giant world. The boy had been introduced to Kermis (via the teleporter) and emergency procedures had been organized to keep him safe in the future.

"Barry, if you are staying, you might as well be the custodian of the original remote control I designed for the Hydraulic Man," said Mark, "Do you fully understand how to operate it?"

"Yes. I've been on guard duty with it a few times," said Barry.

"Well good luck," said Mark.

Everyone said their farewells to Barry, and he then went off in the Hydraulic Man's pocket, to meet up with Berlia.

The six Spindrift adults packed everything into the ship, climbed aboard, and radioed Kermis to teleport the ship to his desk. He set the teleporter, brought them to his office, and then sent them to London airport. They began the long and convoluted process of warning the sub orbital airlines of earth about the space warp.

Back on the giant world, Barry lived in the forest inside the Hydraulic Man's chest cavity, which Berlia fitted out with several earth sized comforts for him. They would meet at what had been the outpost for dates, and so she could replenish Barry's food supplies, and give him changes of clothes, and take his old ones home for washing.

One day Berlia was waiting at the outpost, when a vile teenaged thug attacked her, and forced her to the ground, making it very clear that he was going to rape her. Suddenly a huge giant man pulled the thug off the girl, and knocked him unconscious.

It was the Hydraulic Man, with Barry at the controls.

"You saved me!" she said.

"Report him to the police, quickly, before he comes to. Say that a man saved you, and then left. They'll assume he's a fugitive, but they only need your testimony to convict this creep," said Barry, who had recognised the evil giant as the veterinarian's assistant who had terrorized Valerie in the hopes of learning the location of their base camp. The forest would be a much better meeting place, once he was locked away. Many of the giant authorities had no regard for little people's rights, but they would still act on a rape report.

Barry boarded the Hydraulic Man and stood guard over the thug, in case he awoke before the police returned. When he heard them coming, he quickly had the Hydraulic Man get him out of there. There would have been no way to get it to give a testimony, and its existence had to be kept secret. Zoral might have suspected Mark of keeping it, but it was up to Barry now.

When the would be rapist was in custody, Berlia kissed Barry more affectionately than she had ever done before.

"I don't know what I'd have done without you," she said.

"You played a vital role in the safety of all my friends, when we first met," said Barry, "and I love you very much."

Dorina had never told Kermis what had happened to her first husband, only that he had been lost in quicksand. She did not want him to know of their hunts for little people, nor her secret resentment of them. She was surprised, when he told her of his role in returning the little people to their home planet.

As a result of their earlier meeting with Kermis, the Spindrift team never met Olds and Fielder. Nor did they meet Berna and Thorg. Yet Berna and Thorg's exploration mission on the giant world enabled them to be the ones to come across Olds and Fielder plotting their scheme. Berna and Thorg were not sidetracked, as Steve never stole an STM. They were able to devote their time to defeating Olds and Fielder, with the help of the authoritarian visitor from 5477, and the two renegades were returned to 5477 to face punishment.


End file.
